Lust for Life
by Kitty September
Summary: Next Issue: How do you [pull] a ghost? Well, if it's John Constantine he does so probably literally, probably while drunk, and probably with Gary Lester. [EDIT: 15 June 15: Format Issues Fixed]


This is not the stupidest thing he has ever done. But seeing as the he in question is John Constantine that's really not saying much. Certainly not saying anything in favour of this current endeavour. At least he didn't really do it on purpose (this time). There is that. It's not like he sat down with the gin and decided this is where he was going to end up. Not even an ulterior motive in it. So, there is that.

It just sort of happened - an impulse. Not as bad as jumping off a moving train, worse than, say, ice cream for breakfast. Probably worse than summoning a minor demon to clean the house (though that would not have happened if Chas hadn't been such a nag, so that one wasn't all John's fault either)...

Gary looks sad. Which, well, he did die strung out and screaming - not surprisin' really. Poor old Gaz.

It really shouldn't be the motivator it is, because Gaz always looks sad - that's half the point and half the problem right there. Even in life Gary spent a lot of time looking sad, or lonely, or just plain wanting. Happy people don't go around haunting grumpy chain smoking conjurers, now do they? Or anyone for that matter. Happy people wander off into the Veil and go wherever they're going. Having your old mate follow you around and chat about his day and make the odd joke wouldn't really be much of a haunting, now would it? So, of bloody course Gaz looks sad - that's what ghosts do. But, John Constantine is a reckless bastard (ask anyone) and, well… Gary looks sad and that's what starts it.

Now, y'see, to understand what's happening in this specific moment of very stupid you have to know a little something about ghosts. Particularly ghosts that haunt a person rather than a place or a thing. Ghosts are stuck Between. They're not always or ever fully in the Veil, but they're not out and about in our world all the time either. It's the thing, or the place, or the person - and their attachment to it - that gives them the power, or the door, to break out of the Veil and manifest or affect the living world. The thing about that is that haunted people also have a will, they have desires and attachments and feelings too - just like ghosts but unlike places and things. There's also a whole lot of bollocks about harmonics, and emotional, hormonal, and psychic resonance, and electrostatic disruptions, and magnetic fields and such like, but you don't care about that. The real point is that it's a bit of a two way street when you're haunting a person.

Ultimately if the person being haunted really wants to, like really bone deep, blood drunk wants to, and is daft enough to try then he (or she, in theory, but lets face it blokes are just more likely to do something this stupid) can push back against that deathly bond. They can use the connection the ghost has to them to break through in the other direction. The ghost can and does effect (and affect) them - but they can effect it too. With enough force of will and, in this case, gin you can do just about anything.

There's a strange combination of that usual gin inspired malaise and a spark of memory, and that's all it takes. Gary looks sad and there's always been one sure way for John to change that - for a while at least. So, fuck it (no pun intended) why bloody not.

John puts down the gin bottle with a heavy clunk (he ran out of tonic an hour ago) and gets to his feet, only a little unsteadily considering. He watches the ghost out of the corner of his eye, so it won't fade.

"Gaz?" he says. Tries it out on his tongue for the first time in weeks.

Gary looks at him. Sadly, obviously. But at least that shows he's close to the Edge, close to the now and the here of things.

"You alright, mate?" John asks. Because that's how this thing used to start and dead or not there's old habits and older and they die harder than men.

"No I am not all bloody right John. I'm dead, if you hadn't noticed?"

Which, yeah, fair cop. John shrugs, and smiles at him, the lopsided one that almost always worked on Gaz.

"C'mere," John says, leaves the earlier blunder in the air and keeps playing by the old rules.

Gary is staring at him. And he's almost corporeal now, John can look at him front on and the edges barely fade. As it solidifies Gary's shape is changing too, something in him recognises old patterns and moulds to them. Within a few seconds John is face to face with an 18 year old punk of a kid with safety pins in his ears, a ring in his lip and not a single demon binding scar. It's kind of beautiful and John's not sure if he ever realised that before.

"You cannot be serious?" Gary says. Which is more sensible than he ever was before. Maybe a horrible death has a maturing effect on a bloke, who knows. He's right, too. John really shouldn't do this. But he's pretty sure it'll work and that's what matters.

John shrugs again, this time only one shoulder, tilts his head back - an invitation, 'this way' his body says so his words don't have to. Gary stares back at him, incredulous but maybe hopeful too. Already not quite so sad.

John reaches out with his left hand, pushes up to the Edge, pushes with his mind and his will more than his hand and… there. He pushes through the Edge, just far enough to grab Gary's wrist. The ghost looks down at the point of connection, fascinated to the edge of horror.

"I said, c'mere," John reminds him and then he pulls. He doesn't actually have anywhere to put a spirit so he doesn't pull Gary out, rather he pulls himself closer. Pulls them both into the Between as close to the edge of here and now and nowhere as he can. Close enough.

Gary's eyes go wide, surprise and anticipation, and that's better than sad. "Relax mate," John whispers when Gary almost backs away. Everything is a whisper here. Everything is cold here. Or what would be cold if cold was a thing you could feel here. It is actually more the absence of any temperature. For a moment John feels its loss - a fraction of a memory of summer warm skin on his but he shakes it off and presses his advantage instead.

He raises his free hand to Gary's cheek and presses in close, each point of contact burns with something that isn't heat. Burns with possibility and history and that not-quite-wrong of it all. Gary gains colour with every passing moment, those big eyes becoming more blue and less grey by the second. He's giving John that lost mouse look that is almost as achingly familiar as the sad one. His lips are slightly parted, but wild animal tense, waiting for-

John kisses the ghost and distracts them both. Softer than life, colder too with that same no heat kind of cold. Except the steel ring, rolling across John's lip, that actually feels like real cold, like he always thought it would and it never did. Steel on soft skin, it tastes like forgotten moments and lost chances. He tugs it with his teeth, tries to regain some of that frantic innocence. It almost works.

Gentle and tender never was their style. The moment he gives in to it all Gaz has firm hand in John's hair. And he's so present now that John actually feels it. Doesn't have to fake moving where Gary wants him. Moves with it natural like, like it never was. He's not sure when or how the fingers of their other hands entangled but he lets it happen, lets it be - the way he never would as a kid. He drags them backward, because there may be no walls or objects for Gary but there still are for him. He drops them both down into the chair without even looking. It's big and soft, it won't kill him, the rest of this daft charade might but that's beside the point.

Gary tumbles after him - the way he always did. Holds on to John's hand, fingers digging deep enough to hurt, like the literal lifeline it is. Gary is so very present now, John can actually feel every inch of him, can feel the texture of Gary's skin (a memory of skin) where his tee-shirt rides up. Skinny even then, in a football and romper stomper kind of way - not a dead and hungry kind of way. Smooth and new and lost under John's hands. He pulls him in closer, like he can, like he can make it better somehow by holding a ghost close to his chest. Like he can kiss it fucking better.

Gary doesn't seem to care. He presses forward against John's body, desperate for flesh on flesh contact that he'll never really have. The closest he can get to it is the memory of once living skin pushed up hard against John's breathing feeling form. John wasn't wearing much to start with but now Gary is tugging uselessly at the last few buttons of John's shirt with his free hand (the other won't let go of John's). He can't quite materialise enough to move the fabric even though John can feel every smooth edge of him now. He's whimpering with it and John takes pity on them both - lifts off the chair a bit and opens the buttons. He could probably take the shirt of through Gary but that might break the almost spell of it. Might remind Gaz what he is (and what he isn't) which would defeat the whole thing. But it's enough. It gives him what he wanted.

Gary had always been obsessed with John's chest, come to think of it. John's never known why. There's a long since faded scar on John's hip and Gary's hand goes straight for it. It used to look like rough cut GL, and Gaz was never much good at the good stuff, the pain stuff, but he'd sure as hell liked that. John probably should have thought more about that at the time. Or now. Or ever. But he lets it go. Too late now anyway. He leans back a bit instead, taking Gary with him, lets ghostly hands explore his living flesh. He kisses a dead man like it isn't a lost fucking cause. It feels pretty good. Considering.

Gary's knees slip through the arms of the chair but every inch of him moulds to John's body. Right then John's all that's real and that's probably alright. Probably how these things are meant to work. So John arches up into him, presses them even closer. Like the fucked up little curr he is John is getting hard for a sodding ghost, turned on by a memories of the man who dies screaming for him, the memory of touch that's so strong it's on the edge of real. Well, fuck it, that was the point of this little pitch into oblivion wasn't it. He kisses harder. Follows the impulse to hold Gaz close and grind up into his not quite flesh.

Gary's apparently forgotten about clothes which is nice, convenient too. Or maybe he's just remembered what being naked in John's lap feels like. Either way it works. John kisses his jaw and his throat, frantic in a way that he never used to be. Needy in a way that might break the spell because Gaz might not know how to respond - but doesn't fucking matter. They'll figure it out. Buries his face in a ghostly neck and bites. His teeth remember this and so does Gary's not-quite-flesh. If he closes his eyes and focuses he can almost remember what it should taste like. Skin, and that Imperial Leather soap Gaz' mum used to like. Always coal soot, sweat and booze, and something else too. Something he can't quite grip, no matter how hard his arm digs into Gary's almost imaginary spine. Might be home.

Gary makes that sound in the back of his throat that John had forgotten. The one that was half whimper, half desperate cry, all animal need. How had he forgotten that sound. God he hopes he can again before it digs into his bones and sets up in the marrow again. Gary arches and flesh meets memory in a moment of fraught tension. The man might be only half real but the friction's real enough. John comes sudden and bitter sweet, with whispered breath on whisper skin. In his pants, with an ear full of safety pins between his teeth - so familiar and so long lost. Not quite new but not quite gone. A dead man's name caught in his throat. He breathes back down against the ever breathless human shape in his lap. His head is spinning drunk, right now he's made of nothing but cold comfort and hot skin.

John isn't sure if that counts as shagging or wanking - not sure it matters either. He manages to stop himself saying it though, which is good. Knows enough not to break that thin line holding Gary in the almost real. The whole point of this was to stop Gary looking all sad at him for a few minutes. Mostly.

It works, because when he pulls back a moment to look, Gaz smiles at him, sweet, like sugar and spring time snow. So, John laughs at that dopelessly dopey expression and maybe at himself. And for one lost and broken moment it's a 17 year old's laugh, it's Johnny C the tattered little punk and his idiot bassist, the boy with the car and a boy with nothing but his charms. For that one moment it's almost good. It's almost okay. Doesn't last, but right then and there… well, it's almost real.


End file.
